Chapter 15
Waning
That’s us... a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
— CARL SAGAN, PALE BLUE DOT
COLLINS
Ihave a bad heart.
The organ in my chest is broken. It’s black and bruised and callused, suffering a wound that has never repaired. And while time seems to heal some wounds, apparently its passage fails to mend mitral valve damage.
The very blood that keeps the muscle pumping flows in reverse, traveling the wrong way. Making it bad.
Some things just are.
A frigid wind breaks across the soaring spires, sending the briny scent of ocean through the West Quad.
Dead leaves crunch beneath my boots as I push past the exertion in my body and the students, fighting the fatigue settling deep in my bones.
It’s the kind of weary that makes me almost regret how far I let things go with Orion.
My heart hasn’t felt the same since.
As one day slips into another, Orion says, “I want you alone, angel.” The muscle flutters as I tell him, “Yes.” Another day passes, and I ask him, “So what’s your star sign?” He chuckles, then murmurs in an amused tone, “You’re adorable, starling,” and my heart skips a beat.
One week bleeds into the next, and tender moments are stolen as Orion plays piano, a melody so achingly beautiful, I swear the organ in my chest stops beating altogether as the notes shape and unspool beneath his fingers, and captivated, I rise onto the tips of my toes for the first time since before.
Then one night, when he leads me to the university theater, the lights go out, plunging us into absolute darkness. Before panic drags me under, his arms circle me from behind, and the ceiling illuminates with an explosion of stars, transforming the theater into a shimmering planetarium.
And my heart bursts.
We lie side by side on the stone floor, gazing at the cosmos in the starlit dark, and Orion says, “Finally, a use for that fucking VR simulator.” I look over at him.
“You’re seducing me with the stars, Dr. Night.
” His smile is too striking as he whispers, “It’s not cliché when every time I gaze at you, I want to immortalize you in the heavens with them, angel,” and I hear the crack, a deep, internal fault line through my heart.
One. Two. Three.
The stern tone of Laurel’s voice echoes through my thoughts, always forcing me to look in the mirror, see what’s truly there.
I convinced myself I could undo Orion while maintaining control. Yet manipulation requires a degree of belief in your lies. The deeper you sink into that deception, the more you risk falling victim to your own tactics. Losing yourself to the curated feelings.
In that observatory dome, I didn’t just lower my defenses; I dropped them into the deepest chasm of the ocean. I tore my trauma wide and let it bleed, trusting a killer in my most vulnerable state.
For one fractured heartbeat, as he tightened that ligature around my throat, it wasn’t my life I feared he’d take. With his strong arms holding me immobile as I fell apart, like the music beneath his fingers, I felt the desire to let it all go—the pain, the anger. The burden.
And yet, the firefly doesn’t allow the male to bleed the toxins from her veins.
Revenge lives in my blood.
As more days pass, I’ve started to notice Orion’s agitation. The increasing mood swings. The darkness deepening the gray ring around his irises, dulling the vivid blue-green waters.
The closer the eclipse draws, the more withdrawn he becomes.
Beyond the heated glances and charged near-touches in shadowy corridors, he’s spent the past few days locked in his observatory with his research. I could push him into a session, but he’s volatile, unstable. And with Banner content for the time being, it’s safer to wait until the last moment.
Lips buried in my scarf for warmth, I cross underneath the arches of the colonnade as birds take flight overhead, my hurried steps echoing against the stone. I’m almost to the entrance when Prescott appears from my periphery.
“Collins,” he calls out.
Straightening my backbone, I turn his way and force a smile. My teeth chatter too hard to correct him on the informal use of my name. “Dr. Prescott, how was your day?”
The rigid set to his jaw clashes with his smile. “You never took me up on my offer,” he says, disregarding the pleasantry.
“Oh.” I touch my forehead, then give a soft laugh. “Time has really gotten away from me. There’s so much going on with the upcoming symposium—”
“We need to talk,” he cuts me short with a sharp look. “You know, I’ve been here for a year now. I’ve put in a lot of time, a lot of hard work.”
Something in the way he says this feels off, and my senses go on high alert. “No one’s discrediting that.”
“Look, you need to be careful around Night.” A pensiveness settles in his gaze. “The fact is, he’s dangerous. I worry you’re not safe.”
There’s an anxious quality to his tone that gives me pause. Pushing past the unnerving feeling, I tell him, “I assure you, I’ve worked with far more challenging individuals.”
A smug smile pulls into place. “That’s unfortunate.” He pushes in too close, towering over me. “Here’s the thing. By having me removed from the observatory, you’re interfering with my progress. But for your own safety, I think it’s best if you leave.”
My grip tightens instinctively around the umbrella handle, a defensive reflex. This is the second attempt from a man to cow me into leaving.
“Thank you for your concern,” I say evenly, adjusting my briefcase in my other hand, “but I’m perfectly capable of managing myself.”
Ending our conversation right here, I turn to leave. He takes hold of my upper arm, drawing me to a stop. “Collins, I need you to stop the sessions with Dr. Night.”
Alarm rings through my bones. My sudden shortness of breath clips my words, too many of them rushing out in my panic. “It’s harmful to abruptly end sessions with a patient working through loss…especially when it’s someone close in the same field—”
“Who are you talking about—?” he cuts in, his dark brows drawing together. “Ah, you mean Dr. Calloway.” He releases a derisive breath. “Jesus, she died years ago. Their engagement was well over by then.”
My mouth parts. The sandstone beneath my feet shifts, unsteady. “Please remove your hand from me,” I manage to say.
I twist my arm in an attempt to break his grip just as a loud rumble disrupts the altercation.
Prescott’s hand falls away. His reaction is delayed as he jumps back just in time to evade the wheel coming into contact with his leg. “What the hell—?”
The roar of the motorcycle is deafening in the covered colonnade. Orion drops his booted feet on either side of his bike and kills the engine. Helmet visor shielding his face, he straightens on the seat. “Sorry. Lost control for a moment.”
Heat blooms in the center of my chest. I’ve spent days trying to figure out how to crack his defenses, and all it took was one threat from Prescott asserting his dominance.
The lowering sun reflects off his black visor as he briefly turns his head in my direction, and I feel his thorough inspection cover every inch of me.
“Not a problem, Night.” Prescott drops his hands into his coat pockets, his annoyance evident in the curl of his upper lip. “But you should be more careful. Someone could get hurt.”
Orion lifts the visor and stares dead at him. “That warning goes both ways.” The steely tone of his voice provokes a shiver. There’s a crazed gleam to his eyes I’ve never seen, and the danger there shallows my breath.
Prescott nods curtly, then glances my way once imploringly, before he stalks off amid the lingering threat. I watch him for a moment longer, still unsettled.
“You actually should remove the bike from the walkway,” I say, giving Orion my full attention. “Dr. Banner won’t be too impressed by this display.”
Unconcerned, Orion removes his helmet, and I’m met with the fierce current of his ocean-teal eyes, drawn helplessly into their depths. He’s windblown, as wild and unpredictable as the ocean itself, always looking as though he’s made of night and waves.
Amused, he crooks an eyebrow. “Are you impressed?”
I bite the corner of my lip, fighting the urge to smile. Whatever disturbed spark I glimpsed there a moment ago has dissipated, replaced by a heated ember, like stars igniting amid those dark depths.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say.
“I have,” he admits, not denying the allegation. “But you make it fucking impossible to do so for long.”
My mouth twists. “I’m not letting you out of our arrangement.”
He cocks his head. “Every time I save you, I find myself deeper in trouble, Dr. Holbrook.”
I inhale an aching breath, releasing it with a slight quiver that has nothing to do with the chilly afternoon.
Ever observant, Orion notices. He rakes his fingers through his disheveled hair before throwing his leg over.
Leaning against the seat, he extends the helmet toward me. “I’ll keep you warm.”
I hold the fierce challenge in his gaze. In psychology, the law of figure-ground shifts our focus in order to offer new perspectives. Such as the “faces or vases” illusion, where distinguishing the object from its background reveals an entirely different image.
The more Orion focuses on me as his object of obsession, the more the surrounding threats blur, dissolving into the abstract image. He doesn’t perceive the danger.
It’s the figure—the object itself—that controls the illusion.
And yet, as the powerful current in his eyes threatens to drag me past the boundary of safety, I sense the object of my desire shifting just as dangerously.
I can’t lose focus.
Fortifying my defenses, I step forward and take hold of the helmet.
The captivating smile that breaks across his face clenches my heart, right before he gives the helmet a hard tug, pulling me toward him and eliminating the remaining distance between us.
Standing between his parted legs, I unconsciously brace my hand to his thigh, and he doesn’t tense at my touch.